American Bittern in Suffolk

Way back in 2010, Colin and I drove overnight down to Cornwall for an American Bittern that had been found near Zennor. There have only been 38 records, 9 since 1950 and only a couple of those have been seen by more than a few observers so it was well received during it's stay. I didn't really think I'd see another one again, and I wouldn't have expected it to be a spring bird in East Anglia. However, following a Twitter post last weekend of a birder proudly sharing his first Bittern images from Carlton Marshes near Lowestoft, all hell broke loose and a large crowd descended on Sunday and subsequent days. The weather was pretty awful over this period, but a few managed to get decent images even if it involved waits of six hours or more.
There wasn't much else around today, so Colin and I went this morning. I left Stevenage in lovely sunshine (the first for a week or more) but the further east we drove the duller and cooler it became. However it want too bad, and I got my first Peacock of the year in the parking field-my only butterfly of the day though.
Heard a few Chiffchaffs on the long walk to the big crowd, with a couple of Blackcaps, Cetti's warblers and my first sedge Warbler. The crowd was split into two parts, with a few birders scattered around on the higher banks of the river and we joined the northern group. The first good bird appeared behind us-a Barn Owl. Unfortunately I was hand holding  my manual focus 500mm lens and 2x converter at the time but managed to get a few shots of it perched, but missed the best as it hunted the ditches near us.

An odd song from a lone Willow in front of us attracted attention-a fine male Ring Ouzel. I didn't manage to get any sharp images though. Shortly after, a male Wheatear was found on the grazing marsh, and not long after that a single Whimbrel was located. It didn't stay long and flew off after about 15 minutes.
Some time around 11 a big shout out alerted us to the American Bittern in flight. It was a long way off-rather more distant than the Cornish bird was, but in bins the views were superb, with the wing details showing very well. I tried to get the camera on it but only managed to get a couple of blurred images of it flying away from us as it dropped into the reeds to our south.
Having realised that William and a few others were nearby we went to join them, then we all walked down to the southern crowd where the Bittern had been seen to drop down in the corner of an open area. We spent a good hour here, watching displaying Marsh Harriers and hoping it would show but it never did. I did get a glimpse of an ordinary Bittern in flight-again a long way off. Around mid-day we decided to make our move as lunch was calling and it had got a bit colder. However approaching the northern crowd we could see that they were getting agitated. Turned out the American Bittern had been seen walking in front of the reeds and we just missed it. This was quite a way from where it landed, but five minutes later it was relocated crossing one of the clear areas and headed for the Ouzel bush.

I had frantically put my 2x converter back on (having removed it earlier) but didn't have time to set the camera set up, and these ended up badly under exposed, but I have been able to recover the data, though the dynamic range is reduced and the noise is a bit higher than I would have liked.
I was hoping it would re-appear the other side of the bush but it didn't. Perhaps the Chinese Water Deer (one of many seen today) made it a bit nervous.

About the only birds we missed were one or two Yellow Wagtails-one in the afternoon was a blue headed one, so it was a pretty decent morning out, with some good birds and a great crowd.